Würzburg, Germany - Würzburg Travel Guide - Würzburg Tourism

Würzburg

Bocksbeutel wine bottle, Würzburg, Germany (cc)

Würzburg Travel Guide

Introduction

Würzburg is a popular tourist destination, situated on the banks of the river Main in the heart of Germany's Franken (Franconia) wine region, where the flat, oval-shaped Bocksbeutel wine bottles are still in vogue. The town itself was once the capital of the Duchy of Franken, and thus is filled with lovely Baroque buildings. Among the priorities here are the magnificent, 18th-century Würzburg Residenz, the fortress Marienberg which overlooks the ancient Old Main Bridge, and the city's "100 churches" that run the gamut in architectural styles – Romanesque, Gothic, Baroque, Renaissance. There are also good museums here, and a venerable old university that dates from 1402 and has the distinction of being one of Germany's oldest and most traditional universities.

Würzburg also has associations to several artists and luminaries, notable among them the medieval poet Walther von der Vogelweide, sculptor and woodcarver Tilman Riemenschneider, Baroque architect and master builder Balthasar Neumann, and the painter Giovanni Battista Tiepolo. Here, too, in 1895, Wilhelm Röntgen discovered X-rays.

Würzburg is located approximately equidistant from Frankfurt am Main, which lies to its northwest, and Nürnberg, which lies to the southeast – 120 kilometers (75 miles) from either.

Würzburg has a population of about 134,000.

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